in.routed

, routed

Synopsis

Description

The daemon in.routed, often referred to as routed, is invoked at boot
time to manage the network routing tables. It uses Routing Information Protocol,
RIPv1 (RFC 1058), RIPv2 (RFC 2453), and Internet Router Discovery Protocol (RFC
1256) to maintain the kernel routing table. The RIPv1 protocol is based on
the reference 4.3BSD daemon.

in.routed is managed by means of the service management facility (SMF), using
the fault management resource identifier (FMRI):

svc:/network/routing/route:default

The daemon listens on a udp socket for the route service (see
services(4)) for Routing Information Protocol packets. It also sends and receives multicast Router
Discovery ICMP messages. If the host is a router, in.routed periodically supplies
copies of its routing tables to any directly connected hosts and networks.
It also advertises or solicits default routes using Router Discovery ICMP messages.

When started (or when a network interface is later turned on), in.routed
uses an AF_ROUTE address family facility to find those directly connected interfaces
configured into the system and marked “up”. It adds necessary routes for
the interfaces to the kernel routing table. Soon after being first started, and
provided there is at least one interface on which RIP has not
been disabled, in.routed deletes all pre-existing non-static routes in the kernel table.
Static routes in the kernel table are preserved and included in RIP responses
if they have a valid RIP metric (see route(1M)).

If more than one interface is present (not counting the loopback interface),
it is assumed that the host should forward packets among the connected
networks. After transmitting a RIP request and Router Discovery Advertisements or Solicitations
on a new interface, the daemon enters a loop, listening for RIP request
and response and Router Discovery packets from other hosts.

When a request packet is received, in.routed formulates a reply based on
the information maintained in its internal tables. The response packet generated contains
a list of known routes, each marked with a “hop count” metric
(a count of 16 or greater is considered “infinite”). Advertised metrics reflect the
metric associated with an interface (see ifconfig(1M)), so setting the metric on
an interface is an effective way to steer traffic.

Responses do not include routes with a first hop on the requesting
network, to implement in part split-horizon. Requests from query programs such as
rtquery(1M) are answered with the complete table.

The routing table maintained by the daemon includes space for several gateways
for each destination to speed recovery from a failing router. RIP response
packets received are used to update the routing tables, provided they are
from one of the several currently recognized gateways or advertise a better metric
than at least one of the existing gateways.

When an update is applied, in.routed records the change in its own
tables and updates the kernel routing table if the best route to
the destination changes. The change in the kernel routing table is reflected
in the next batch of response packets sent. If the next response is
not scheduled for a while, a flash update response containing only recently
changed routes is sent.

In addition to processing incoming packets, in.routed also periodically checks the routing
table entries. If an entry has not been updated for 3 minutes,
the entry's metric is set to infinity and marked for deletion. Deletions
are delayed until the route has been advertised with an infnite metric to
insure the invalidation is propagated throughout the local internet. This is a
form of poison reverse.

Routes in the kernel table that are added or changed as a
result of ICMP Redirect messages are deleted after a while to minimize
black-holes. When a TCP connection suffers a timeout, the kernel tells in.routed,
which deletes all redirected routes through the gateway involved, advances the age of
all RIP routes through the gateway to allow an alternate to be
chosen, and advances of the age of any relevant Router Discovery Protocol
default routes.

Hosts acting as internetwork routers gratuitously supply their routing tables every 30
seconds to all directly connected hosts and networks. These RIP responses are
sent to the broadcast address on nets that support broadcasting, to the
destination address on point-to-point links, and to the router's own address on other
networks. If RIPv2 is enabled, multicast packets are sent on interfaces that
support multicasting.

If no response is received on a remote interface, if there are
errors while sending responses, or if there are more errors than input
or output (see netstat(1M)), then the cable or some other part of the
interface is assumed to be disconnected or broken, and routes are adjusted
appropriately.

The Internet Router Discovery Protocol is handled similarly. When the daemon is
supplying RIP routes, it also listens for Router Discovery Solicitations and sends
Advertisements. When it is quiet and listening to other RIP routers, it
sends Solicitations and listens for Advertisements. If it receives a good Advertisement and
it is not multi-homed, it stops listening for broadcast or multicast RIP
responses. It tracks several advertising routers to speed recovery when the currently
chosen router dies. If all discovered routers disappear, the daemon resumes listening
to RIP responses. It continues listening to RIP while using Router Discovery if
multi-homed to ensure all interfaces are used.

The Router Discovery standard requires that advertisements have a default “lifetime” of
30 minutes. That means should something happen, a client can be without
a good route for 30 minutes. It is a good idea to
reduce the default to 45 seconds using -Prdisc_interval=45 on the command
line or rdisc_interval=45 in the /etc/gateways file. See gateways(4).

While using Router Discovery (which happens by default when the system has
a single network interface and a Router Discover Advertisement is received), there
is a single default route and a variable number of redirected host
routes in the kernel table. On a host with more than one
network interface, this default route will be via only one of the interfaces.
Thus, multi-homed hosts running with -q might need the no_rdisc argument described
below.

To support “legacy” systems that can handle neither RIPv2 nor Router Discovery,
you can use the pm_rdisc parameter in the /etc/gateways. See gateways(4).

By default, neither Router Discovery advertisements nor solicitations are sent over point-to-point
links (for example, PPP). The Solaris OE uses a netmask of all
ones (255.255.255.255) on point-to-point links.

in.routed supports the notion of “distant” passive or active gateways. When the
daemon is started, it reads the file /etc/gateways to find such distant
gateways that cannot be located using only information from a routing socket,
to discover if some of the local gateways are passive, and to obtain
other parameters. Gateways specified in this manner should be marked passive if
they are not expected to exchange routing information, while gateways marked active
should be willing to exchange RIP packets. Routes through passive gateways are installed
in the kernel's routing tables once upon startup and are not included
in transmitted RIP responses.

Distant active gateways are treated like network interfaces. RIP responses are sent
to the distant active gateway. If no responses are received, the associated
route is deleted from the kernel table and RIP responses are advertised
via other interfaces. If the distant gateway resumes sending RIP responses, the associated
route is restored.

Distant active gateways can be useful on media that do not support
broadcasts or multicasts but otherwise act like classic shared media, such as
some ATM networks. One can list all RIP routers reachable on the
HIPPI or ATM network in /etc/gateways with a series of “host” lines. Note
that it is usually desirable to use RIPv2 in such situations to
avoid generating lists of inferred host routes.

Gateways marked external are also passive, but are not placed in the
kernel routing table, nor are they included in routing updates. The function
of external entries is to indicate that another routing process will install
such a route if necessary, and that other routes to that destination should
not be installed by in.routed. Such entries are required only when both
routers might learn of routes to the same destination.

Options

Listed below are available options. Any other argument supplied is interpreted as
the name of a file in which the actions of in.routed should
be logged. It is better to use -T (described below) instead of
appending the name of the trace file to the command. Associated SMF properties
for these options are described, and can be set by means of
a command of the form:

# routeadm -m route:default name=value

-A

Do not ignore RIPv2 authentication if we do not care about RIPv2 authentication. This option is required for conformance with RFC 2453. However, it makes no sense and breaks using RIP as a discovery protocol to ignore all RIPv2 packets that carry authentication when this machine does not care about authentication. This option is equivalent to setting the ignore_auth property value to false.

-d

Do not run in the background. This option is meant for interactive use and is not usable under the SMF.

-Fnet[/mask][,metric]

Minimize routes in transmissions via interfaces with addresses that match net (network number)/mask (netmask), and synthesizes a default route to this machine with the metric. The intent is to reduce RIP traffic on slow, point-to-point links, such as PPP links, by replacing many large UDP packets of RIP information with a single, small packet containing a “fake” default route. If metric is absent, a value of 14 is assumed to limit the spread of the “fake” default route. This is a dangerous feature that, when used carelessly, can cause routing loops. Notice also that more than one interface can match the specified network number and mask. See also -g. Use of this option is equivalent to setting the minimize_routes property.

-g

Used on internetwork routers to offer a route to the “default” destination. It is equivalent to -F0/0,1 and is present mostly for historical reasons. A better choice is -Ppm_rdisc on the command line or pm_rdisc in the /etc/gateways file. A larger metric will be used with the latter alternatives, reducing the spread of the potentially dangerous default route. The -g (or -P) option is typically used on a gateway to the Internet, or on a gateway that uses another routing protocol whose routes are not reported to other local routers. Note that because a metric of 1 is used, this feature is dangerous. Its use more often creates chaos with a routing loop than solves problems. Use of this option is equivalent to setting the offer_default_route property to true.

-h

Causes host or point-to-point routes not to be advertised, provided there is a network route going the same direction. That is a limited kind of aggregation. This option is useful on gateways to LANs that have other gateway machines connected with point-to-point links such as SLIP. Use of this option is equivalent to setting the advertise_host_routes property to false.

-m

Cause the machine to advertise a host or point-to-point route to its primary interface. It is useful on multi-homed machines such as NFS servers. This option should not be used except when the cost of the host routes it generates is justified by the popularity of the server. It is effective only when the machine is supplying routing information, because there is more than one interface. The -m option overrides the -q option to the limited extent of advertising the host route. Use of this option is equivalent to setting the advertise_host_routes_primary property to true.

-n

Do not install routes in kernel. By default, routes are installed in the kernel. Use of this option is equivalent to setting the install_routes property to false.

-Pparams

Equivalent to adding the parameter line params to the /etc/gateways file. Can also be set by means of the parameters property.

-q

Opposite of the -s option. This is the default when only one interface is present. With this explicit option, the daemon is always in “quiet mode” for RIP and does not supply routing information to other computers. Use of this option is equivalent to setting the quiet_mode property to true.

-s

Force in.routed to supply routing information. This is the default if multiple network interfaces are present on which RIP or Router Discovery have not been disabled, and if global IPv4 forwarding is turned on (by means of ipadm(1M)). Use of this option is equivalent to setting the supply_routes property to true.

-S

If in.routed is not acting as an internetwork router, instead of entering the whole routing table in the kernel, it enters only a default route for each internetwork router. This reduces the memory requirements without losing any routing reliability. This option is provided for compatibility with the previous, RIPv1–only in.routed. Use of this option is generally discouraged. Use of this option is equivalent to setting the default_routes_only property to true.

-t

Runs in the foreground (as with -d) and logs the contents of the packets received (as with -zz). This is for compatibility with prior versions of Solaris and has no SMF equivalent.

-Ttracefile

Increases the debugging level to at least 1 and causes debugging information to be appended to the trace file. Because of security concerns, do not to run in.routed routinely with tracing directed to a file. Use of this option is equivalent to setting the log_file property to trace file path.

-v

Enables debug. Similar to -z, except, where -z increments trace_level, -v sets trace_level to 1. Also, -v requires the -T option. Use of this option is equivalent to setting the debug property to true.

-V

Displays the version of the daemon.

-z

Increase the debugging level, which causes more information to be logged on the tracefile specified with -T or stdout. The debugging level can be increased or decreased with the SIGUSR1 or SIGUSR2 signals or with the rtquery(1M) command.

Files

/etc/defaultrouter

If this file is present and contains the address of a default router, the system startup script does not run in.routed. See defaultrouter(4).

/etc/gateways

List of distant gateways and general configuration options for in.routed. See gateways(4).

Notes

In keeping with its intended design, this daemon deviates from RFC 2453
in two notable ways:

By default, in.routed does not discard authenticated RIPv2 messages when RIP authentication is not configured. There is little to gain from dropping authenticated packets when RIPv1 listeners will gladly process them. Using the -A option causes in.routed to conform to the RFC in this case.

Unauthenticated RIP requests are never discarded, even when RIP authentication is configured. Forwarding tables are not secret and can be inferred through other means such as test traffic. RIP is also the most common router-discovery protocol, and hosts need to send queries that will be answered.

in.routed does not always detect unidirectional failures in network interfaces, for example,
when the output side fails.